Contacts: In Washington: Gabriela Aguilar (202) 473-6768 In Guatemala: Virginia Barrios (502) 23-29-80-63 Washington, September 24th 2008- The World Bank’s Board of Directors approved yesterday the new Country Partnership Strategy with Guatemala, covering the period 2009-2012, including IBRD loans up to $1 billion and possible loans from the International Finance Corporation –IFC- for up to $450 million. The loans will be mainly focused to support the efforts of the government in three areas: - Strengthen economic growth,
- Achieve inclusive and sustainable growth, and
- Expand opportunities for vulnerable populations and groups at risk.
Laura Frigenti, World Bank’s Director for Central America, states: “This Strategic Partnership supports the efforts of Guatemala to fight poverty and inequality through the increase of a focused social expense and public investment, as well as through reforms that seek to expand fiscal space and improve governance and transparency”. The priorities in the Country Partnership Strategy were defined jointly with the Guatemalan authorities and reflect the main development areas of President Alvaro Colom’s Government Plan. Also, the strategy was developed in consultation with different stakeholders, including some from the private sector and civil society. The Strategy seeks to contribute to supporting Guatemala’s goals in poverty reduction and improvement of competitiveness both in the short and in the long term. The Strategy includes a combination of development policy loans and investment operations that will support, among others: the conditional cash transfer program; the country’s infrastructure in order to improve the productivity in the rural areas, mainly for the micro and small enterprises. It also foresees possible loans and technical assistance to strengthen the national capacity to prevent mitigate and respond effectively to emergencies due to natural disasters. Another working area is the generation and distribution of sustainable energy, which will be designed based on the national authorities’ guidelines. The IFC, the financial branch of the World Bank Group that gives financial support to the private sector, will mainly support the following sectors: financial, agro-industrial, industrial exports, infrastructure development, tourism and energy. The new Strategy establishes that the analytical work to be carried on by the World Bank in the following four years will be demand-driven, responding to the Government’s needs. Until now, some topics have already been identified, such as: energy market sustainability and the development of micro and small enterprises. The World Bank’s current portfolio in Guatemala consists of nine projects totaling $402.2 million; mainly supporting sustainable economic growth, social development, governance and transparency. - | 
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